Untying PropOrNot: Who They Are … and a Look at 2017’s Biggest Fake News Story
In a week when Propornot plunged new lows of scumminess by sneering at the death of the great Robert Parry, George Eliason looks at who this group is and who is supporting them
A little over a year ago, the deep-state graced the world with Propornot. Thanks to them, 2017 became the year of fake news. Every news website and opinion column now had the potential to be linked to the Steele dossier and Trump collusion with Russia. Every journalist was either with us or against us. Every one that was against us became Russia’s trolls.
Fortunately for the free world, the anonymous group known as Propornot that tried to “out” every website as a potential Russian colluder, in the end only implicated themselves.
Turnabout is fair play and that’s always the fun part, isn’t it? With that in mind, I know the dogs are going to howl this evening over this one.
The damage Propornot did to scores of news and opinions websites in late 2016-2017provides the basis of a massive civil suit. I mean huge, as in the potential is there for a tobacco company sized class-action sized lawsuit. I can say that because I know a lot about a number of entities that are involved and the enormous amount of money behind them.
How serious is this? In 2016, a $10,000 reward was put out for the identities of Propornot players. No one has claimed it yet, and now, I guess no one will. There are times in your life that taking a stand has a cost. To make sure the story gets out and is taken seriously, this is one of those times.
If that’s what it takes for you to understand the danger Propornot and the groups around them pose to everyone you love, if you understand it, everything will have been well worth it.
In this article, you’ll meet some of the people staffing Propornot. You’ll meet the people and publications that provide their expenses and cover the logistics. You’ll meet a few of the deep state players. We’ll deal with them very soon. They need to see this as the warning shot over the bow and start playing nice with regular people. After that, you’ll meet the NGO’s that are funding and orchestrating all of it.
click on image to enlarge
The image that you see is the clincher or game winner that supplies the necessary proof up front and the direct path to Propornot.
This was a passive scan of propornot.com showing the administrative dashboard belongs to the InterpreterMag.com as shown on the left of the image. On the right, it shows that uploads to Propornot.com come from InterpreterMag.com and is a product of that publication.
Now we have the first layer of Propornot, fake news, and our 1st four contestants. We have a slew of new media organizations that are influenced by, or feeding Propornot. Remember, fake news got off the ground and got its wings because of the attention this website received from the Washington Post in Dec. 2016.
At the Interpreter Mag level, here are the people:
Michael Weiss is the Editor-in-Chief at the InterpreterMag.com. According to his Linkd profile, he is also a National Security Analyst for CNN since Jul 2017 as well as an Investigative Reporter for International Affairs for CNN since Apr 2017. He has been a contributor there since 2015. He has been a Senior Editor at The Daily Beast since Jun 2015.
With the lengthy CNN creds, how much involvement does CNN have in fake news? Yes, I know, but we’re talking about Propornot.
Catherine A. Fitzpatrick isis a Russian translator and analyst for the Interpreter. She has worked as an editor for EurasiaNet.org and RFE/RL.
Pierrt Vauxis an analyst and translator for the Interpreter. He’s also an intern. He is a contributor to the Daily Beast, Foreign Policy, RFE/RL and Left Foot Forward and works at Dataminr Inc.
James Miller’s bio includes “Managing Editor of The Interpreter” where he reports on Russia, Ukraine, and Syria. James runs the “Under The Black Flag” column at RFE/RL which provides news, opinion, and analysis about the impact of the Islamic State extremist group in Syria, Iraq, and beyond. He is a contributor at Reuters, The Daily Beast, Foreign Policy, and other publications. He is an expert on verifying citizen journalism and has been covering developments in the Middle East, specifically Syria and Iran, since 2009. Follow him on Twitter: @MillerMENA- Miller even works for the US Embassy in Kiev “diplo-page” the Kiev Post.
The Interpreter is a product of the Atlantic Council. The Digital Forensics Research Lab has been carrying the weight in Ukrainian-Russian affairs for the Atlantic Council. Fellows working with the Atlantic Council in this area include:
Bellingcat – Aric Toler and Eliot Higgins- This linked article shows how an underwear salesman became one of the most important faces of the deep state. Don’t laugh, the image is really appropriate. Higgins’ insecurity runs so deep because of his failures that Higgins tries to get publications censored that question his author-i-tie.
Anne Applebaum
StopFake- Irena Chalupa. Chalupa is the sister to the same Alexandra Chalupa that brought the term Russian hacking to worldwide attention. Irena Chalupa is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. She is also a senior correspondent at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where she has worked for more than twenty years. Ms. Chalupa previously served as an editor for the Atlantic Council, where she covered Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor for Ukraine’s propaganda channel Stopfake.org. She is a Ukrainian Diaspora leader. The Chalupa’s are the 1st family of Ukrainian propaganda. She works with and for Ukrainian Intelligence through the Atlantic Council, Stopfake, and her sisters Andrea (Euromaidanpr) and Alexandra.
Dimitry Alperovich – CEO of Crowdstrike and person who consulted a Ouija board and guessed Russia may have hacked something, somewhere, sometime.
The strand that ties this crew together is they all work for Ukrainian Intelligence. If you hit the links, the ties are documented very clearly. We’ll get to that point again shortly, but let’s go further.
Propornot-> Atlantic Council -> Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG)
Who are the BBG? According to Wikipedia-
The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is an independent agency of the United States government. According to its website, its mission is to “inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.” The BBG supervised Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio y Television Marti, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcast Networks…The board of the BBG was eliminated and replaced with a single appointed chief executive officer as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, which was passed in December 2016.
During the 2016 election, the BBG developed a major conflict of interest. At least two BBG board members worked actively for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. These government officials were working against the president-elect after the election. It looks like it didn’t go unnoticed. In the following linked article, it shows that they should be investigated for their part in an attempted coup.
From a Nov 7, 2016, article: “Karen Kornbluh is helping refine and to get Hillary Clinton’s message out. All of them are names to watch if Clinton wins — and key jobs at the FCC and other federal agencies are up for grabs.”
According to her bio: Karen founded the New America Foundation’s Work and Family Program and is a senior fellow for Digital Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Karen has written extensively about technology policy, women, and family policy for The Atlantic, The New York Times and The Washington Post. New York Times columnist David Brooks cited her Democracy article “Families Valued,” focused on “juggler families” as one of the best magazine articles of 2006.
Michael Kempner is the founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of MWW Group, a staunch Hillary Clinton supporter, and may get a greater role if she is elected. Kempner is a member of the Public Relations Hall of Fame. Michael Kempner hired Anthony Weiner after the sexting scandal broke in 2011.
Jeff Shell, chairman of the BBG and Universal Filmed Entertainment is supporting a secondary role by being an honor roll donor to the Atlantic Council. While the BBG is supposed to be neutral it has continuously helped increase tensions in Eastern Europe. While giving to the Atlantic Council may not be illegal while in his position, currently, the Atlantic Council’s main effort is to ignite a war with Russia. This may set up a major conflict of interest.
According to journalist Robert Parry, the people that will be taking senior positions and especially in foreign policy believe “This consensus is driven by a broad-based backlash against a president who has repeatedly stressed the dangers of overreach and the need for restraint, especially in the Middle East.”
Parry goes on to say that at the forefront of this is the Atlantic Council, “a think tank associated with NATO. Their main goal is a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.”
So, to make sense of all this, most of the people listed would have held cabinet positions in a Hillary Clinton presidency. If the Interpreter is a project of RFE/RL then the decision to go ahead with Propornot would have to go across their desk. That includes then Sec of State, John Kerry.
The unasked question of why would a US Government Agency do this (?) needs to be addressed. All the people listed above were actively working for Clinton to get her elected and throw Donald Trump’s campaign off the rails.
After the election, they were going to take care of Clinton’s “deplorables” by dissecting alternative media. I wrote about this before the election and I warned several major news sites what they could expect. I was right on the money. After she lost, it was already in motion. The “deplorable” media didn’t fall into a particular political pattern other than they did not promote Hillary Clinton.
The purpose of Propornot has been to get people to demand freedom of speech be rolled back. This was/is to be done by destroying fact-based media. If you read further, the entire plan is laid out starting from 2015 when it started coming together.
These people want reality shaped on what the perceived majority (louder) group believes to be true, regardless of what the facts are. Perception based reality is only a Facebook like away from killing one person or elevating another to hero status regardless of what they have done.
That little statement about the free speech rally says it all. It’s something that would hardly be noticed unless you were looking for it because it is part of the meta-data.
Now you can say it’s only a sentence and who cares? Nobody communicates through metadata do they? Wasn’t that what Propornot was all about? Yes, they do communicate through metadata. That’s why I look at it.
Do you see it? No? Look again. There in the metadata, at the bottom of the image is an ad for a job. Go for it and remember to mention the header. It could just as easily be hacking instructions, or a do not disturb sign. That’s why it pays to really research carefully.
The Boston ‘Free Speech’ Rally was billed by the social networks and MSM as a fascist rally. It was really a Free Speech Rally. What they learned is that with just a little nudge, they can make you demand nationalist repression. Nice going Boston!
Hey, is this starting to sound a little conspiratorial? If it is, we need ruskie hackers with Guy Fawkes masks to make this work. They have to admit to changing international politics through hacking in 2016, belong to a foreign country, code in Russian, and use spear phishing techniques to lure people in. Let’s not forget that they also have to work for some form of Intelligence.
Most importantly, they have to work with and influence all of the people above. They will definitely impact US foreign policy toward Russia. Let’s raise the stakes even more. The hackers have to answer to whoever is funding a lot of the illegal and immoral activities.
They are not even savvy enough to stay clear of outing each other. This is the Pravy Sektor hacker RUH8. The common thread for these hackers is clear if you read the linked material on the profiles that make up these organizations. They work for Bellingcat, Informnapalm, the Atlantic Council, Ukrainian Intel, and the Diaspora.
In a follow-up article, I have reason to ask if they were given access to United States Government Top Secret Secure Servers. I’m not kidding.
In a Euromaidan Press article dated November 2nd, 2016, the hackers state enthusiastically “Ukrainian hackers have a rather high level of work. So the help of the USA… I don’t know, why would we need it? We have all the talent and special means for this. And I don’t think that the USA or any NATO country would make such sharp movements in international politics.”
And we have a winner. In 2016 the sharp movement in international politics was caused by…survey says….hacking!!!!
According to Donna Brazille, the Democratic Party servers were hacked multiple times and the hacking didn’t stop until December 2016. At this juncture, we should be able to agree that Seth Rich leaked the information to Wikileaks. But, now we are talking about other hacks. In the above linked article, these hacker specifically say their favorite route is spear phishing email accounts.
In the article, you’ll also see they work directly for Ukrainian Intel. Bellingcat works directly for Ukrainian Intel and works with them and the Atlantic Council. Stopfake is a product of Irena Chalupa who works for RFE/RL, the Atlantic Council and the Ukrainian government. Stopfake works directly with them and is a product of the Ukrainian government. Crowdstrike has an ongoing relationship with Ukrainian Intel and these particular hackers. Crowdstrike conjured up Fancy Bear. Well say, hello to the real fancy bear of 2016 (*fancybear is technically a set of tools and not people).
This means that former Secretary of State John Kerry approved of Ukrainian Intelligence hackers having access to servers inside a US Government Agency because of Propornot and the Atlantic Councils reliance on the hackers.
How are the Ukrainian hackers tied into Propornot at any level? James Miller isn’t shy about using their work. Propornot relies on the work of the Atlantic Council, Aric Toler, Aaron Weisburd, Clint Watts, and Joel Harding. The Ukrainian hackers work directly with InformNapalm and are the go-to resource for most of the people involved and all of the people just named.
Americans are attacking Americans for a foreign country for what amounts to pennies. We’ll deal with them again soon.
Who does the Atlantic Council work for? It’s the same people that staff RFE/RL.
On 29 January 2016 in Washington, U.S.A., Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) President Eugene Czolij and Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe officially signed a Memorandum of Agreement to renew the cooperation between the UWC and the Atlantic Council, that began in September 2014.
In accordance with this Memorandum, the UWC will continue its cooperation with the Atlantic Council on implementing the “Ukraine in Europe Initiative”, which aims to galvanize international support for an independent, sovereign and territorially integral Ukraine, including Crimea. This initiative is also intended to support reforms in Ukraine and its EuroAtlantic integration, and to counter Russian disinformation.
This one little paragraph spells out clearly what I have shown in detail throughout this article.
The Ukrainian World Congress is represented in the US Congress by the Ukrainian Caucus headed up by ISIS supporter and Nazi cheerleader Marcy Kaptur. Her Ukrainian Caucus represents people with political positions that scared Adolf Hitler in WWII.
The obvious takeaway is that a lawsuit is a bare minimum that needs to happen. People need to be investigated for crimes against the state. When we take a closer look at who had potential access to top-secret servers, that will become painfully obvious.
These people have tried and are trying to rip the fabric of society in pieces. At the very least, they have earned a good tarring…and feathering. When you look at the financial end of this a lawsuit in the billions would barely touch it.
Just one company the Ukrainian Diaspora started for this is valued over 100 million dollars. This will need to be a class action suit with a cease and desist to the BBG.
In early 2015, almost 2 years before most people took the idea of censorship seriously, I documented its inception. In the same way, it happens with many of the biggest stories of our times, I stumbled onto it by accident.
In early March 2015, Ukrainian Information Policy designer Joel Harding laid out what to expect going forward in the following statements:
In military IIO operations center on the ability to influence foreign audiences, US, and global audiences, and adversely affect enemy decision making through an integrated approach. Even current event news is released in this fashion. Each portal is given messages that follow the same themes because it is an across the board mainstream effort that fills the information space entirely when it is working correctly.
The purpose of “Inform and Influence Operations” is not to provide a perspective, opinion, or lay out a policy. It is defined as the ability to make audiences “think and act” in a manner favorable to the mission objectives. This is done through applying perception management techniques which target the audiences emotions, motives, and reasoning.
These techniques are not geared for debate. It is to overwhelm and change the target psyche.
Using these techniques information sources can be manipulated and those that write, speak, or think counter to the objective are relegated as propaganda, ill-informed, or irrelevant.”
-Harding
While the above sounds gloriously overoptimistic, Harding, along with his little band of Kremlin Troll hunters personally started developing the idea of organizations capable of blackballing journalists and publications in a way that could not be construed as censorship.
From another March 2015 article– A “Disinformation Charter” for Media and Bloggers:
Top-down censorship should be avoided. But rival media, from Al-Jazeera to the BBC, Fox and beyond, need to get together to create a charter of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Vigorous debate and disagreement qre ,of course, to be encouraged—but media organizations that practice conscious deception should be excluded from the community. A similar code can be accepted by bloggers and other online influencers.
This “Disinformation Charter” for responsible behavior (Ministry of Truth?) he describes is to fight “conscious deception” can only be weighed against how he describes Propaganda.
“The word is frequently used to describe any news emerging one’s opponent.”Harding
Harding’s connections in media are very large. Through his friend Mathew Armstrong, Harding had access to and the ear of the board of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). The BBG board is staffed by the who’s who of network and radio broadcast, print media and shortwave CEO’s and heavy hitters. They are behind RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty).
On the other end of this in 2015, Joel Harding was assembling a group of miscreants to attack the social networks of different journalist and publications. The crude logic behind a direct assault was that by developing, training, and overseeing vast troll networks they could speak over their opposition (people that their employers wanted to be silenced) and subdue dissident online conversation and control the information.
Where this wasn’t feasible, they set up hack and harass attacks at various publication to get them to stop publishing hard-hitting journalists. This still hasn’t been effective because it caused publishers to dig in and harden their internet properties instead.
The softer more indirect approach Harding pushed in March 2015 quickly developed into the unified media strategy he wanted for the US and Europe. Control the information and don’t allow contradicting information or news into the media stream. When it does get in, call it propaganda.
Enter Propornot.
George Eliason is a journalist living in Ukraine.
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Joel Harding was a former sargeant in the US army. Not sure whether he made warrant officer. I see too many portals describing him as a “Brig Gen” which he is NOT!
Can’t help noticing the number of comments coming into your site has about halved since the day you published this. Are you being censored somehow or are notifications of comments not working properly?
Yes you’re correct about the sudden drop in comments. But our traffic hasn’t changed significantly – so it’s probably just one of those things. We always get quite a lot of comment activity compared to other sites of similar reach. Not surprising if it dials back sometimes
Though the Western media scene looks bleak, and Western civilization seems to be in a death spiral as described by FalceMartello, Harry and BigB below, there are also some green shoots, the little grains of mustard seed perennially sprouting upon the barren ground. Among these, the Corbett report:
911 Trillions — Follow the Money
Among other snippets, at 911 Rothschild arms co Carlyle had contacts with Bin Laden family as well as the Bush crime dynasty. After the successful rape of Iraq with transfer of Iraqi assets to Rothschild companies, UK criminals BLiar and Brown were made directors of Carlyle. BLiar was also given a job with Goldman-Sachs, and a directorship in House of Rothschild.
“Love of money is the root of many evils” — Old Testament
Well the western masters of the universe(oligarchs ) are running scared. I myself look at this from a different perspective. Dangerous at it may appear on face value to freedom of speech and so called western democracies , I instead view this as desperation on the part of the western oligarchs. Western democracies died a long time ago, hence to get back at this obvious psy-op bye the masters and the fact that western democracies have been in decline since the late 70’s we are at the point where all western countries are Corporate States run and owned by multi national western companies. We have the largest wage gap since the Gilded age. So back to the article and what it is revealing is that the western oligarchs are running scared that they can no longer control the narrative. Perception management has been an anglo-zionist invention and really came into fruition in the western world during the Thatcher/Reagan years where western democracies went full fascista Lo Stato Corporato The Corporate State went on steroids and virtually was taking over all aspects of western political, economic and social structures. The total decline in western societies can be traced back to this time and a direct correlation to todays events can be made. Hence perception management of todays current events or news is failing and hence the western oligarchs are very worried that their coup is becoming undone.
Conclusion.
Western people in general are now reaching the critical point of cynicism verging on critical point it is oscillating at around the 20 percent which is pretty amazing considering that only a few years ago it was stagnant at 16 percent of the western population. There fore I do concur with the articles angle but laterally speaking this is another sign that the masters of the universe are having a hard time in perception management(Orwellian Propaganda)
I agree with most of what you said but Anglo-Zionist? I think you will find perception management in one form or another has existed long before the creation of the state of Israel or the ideology of Zionism. The term ‘Anglo-American’ would be more credible, in my opinion.
Since the crypto-fascist cold war warriors Thatcher and Reagan came to power these two countries have been at the forefront of the twin evils of neo-liberalism and neo-conservativism, spreading its malign influence across the globe through treachery and war. Their economic and political programmes have been a disaster for both countries, leading to de-industrialisation, off-shoring of jobs, massive increases in poverty, huge wage-gap disparities, and the rampant financialisation of the economy with the illusory wealth of the banking sector and the stock market replacing the real source of wealth that is manufacturing. The fiat economies of the West have become a giant ponzi scheme which now threatens to implode.
I’ve never heard of ‘Is It Propaganda Or Not?’ – aka ‘PROPORNOT’ – but a quick visit to their website reveals an incessant stream of anti-Russian hysteria so ludicrous that it wouldn’t be out of place in an early draft of a George Orwell novel, but one the great man would have abandoned for fear of being accused of trying to infantilise his audience.
Needless to say the Graun is at the forefront of portraying Putin as the ant-christ, while censoring anyone who has the tiniest doubt about pro-west narratives.
It amazes me that more people can’t see through such crude propaganda – but no, high levels of skirt lifting ensue whenever the Guardian invoke the latest existential threat inspired by t’evil Rooskees.
It is perhaps the most extreme for of projection I have ever come across.
If it was not for Robert Parry’s commitment to independent journalism, we would not have this open line of communication – and George would have no platform to courageously expose the liars …the modern day disciples of Lippmann, Bernays, Ellul …the acolytes of Professor Cass R Sunstein …the constituents of the “Secret Government” that steals free human agency and perverts it into the false consciousness of conformity… that bends rationality itself to ideals of their choosing… that contribute to an uncritical intellectual paucity of a one dimensional culture …where individual sovereignty and autonomy are reduced to a life-size mass produced plastic cut-out… individually stamped and reproduced over and over and over and over …
Compared to these invisible cowards: Robert was a Titan. RIP.
Among the publications mentioned in the cvs of the principals behind this operation was Left foot Forward, founded, I believe by Will Straw. No doubt it is connected with the twitter feed to which reference is made
The fruit does not lie far from the tree. WikiPedia: “Along with Euan Blair (son of former British prime minister Tony Blair), Stephen Kinnock (son of former Labour Leader Neil Kinnock) and Joe Dromey (son of Labour MPs Harriet Harman & Jack Dromey), Will Straw has been criticised for being a ‘Red Prince’, a term popularised by the political blogger Guido Fawkes, which refers to the son of a Labour politician who goes into politics.” Crime families like Kinnock’s, BLiar’s, Straw’s and Clinton’s have taken over the Left and handed it to the A-Z-C. Watch your back, Corbyn!
What was the name of the other website like propornot? It also pushed ‘fake news’ agendas. The creators ended up divorced and the hubby ended up with his escort girl friend. Hmm, escapes me. I would throw Q Anon in this mix now. Not quite the same, but definitely in the same sticky foul smelling web.
“… The creators ended up divorced and the hubby ended up with his escort girl friend …”
Smells like Snopes.com. The founders are divorced and the ex-husband then married his girlfriend who is a porn actress and who also runs an escort agency.
Right on cue, yesterday, The Guardian published a piece about a ‘new’ dossier which confirms everything that Steele’s claimed and which has been pretty thoroughly discredited.
The Ukraine has become a launching pad for the deep state. Not coincidentally there are links between this story, that on Freeland and the piece on Biden.
They never stop does the kakistocracy? The way they will turn on another makes me wonder why anyone would want to get involved?
The Guardian was at it again: the second Shearer dossier is Fake News. Those who have been pushing the Russia-gate narrative have ”sprouted arseholes and are shitting themselves to death” …excuse my crudity. Trump apparently confirmed after the SOTU that the Nunes memo will be released “100%”.
http://theduran.com/russiagate-scandal-approaches-its-implosion-point/
And Shearer would seem to be even sleazier than Steele with a track record of propagandising for the Clintons going back to the 90s.
Judgement Day: Thursday …Pelosi is already leading the meltdown.
The Guardian acts so suspiciously like a conduit of US-Israeli propaganda that I can only guess that it, together with the rest of the British mainstream press, has been taken over by US/Israeli intelligence, with British intelligence playing a supporting role.
Great article. The ridiculous manner in which ProPornoT vilified Robert Parry on Twitter right after his death is a good indication of what kind of organisation we’re dealing with. It is one of the many shocktroops for censorship, neo-McCarthyism and ultimately war against Russia.
War period. As long as there is war and conflict, they are happy. “Order out of chaos”.
Propornot’s twitter gives every impression of being run by maladjusted adolescents with Tourette’s syndrome, but that would be a new low even for them – what did they say about the late great Parry?
Their immaturity is laid out in this RT.com article for all to read:
https://www.rt.com/usa/417383-oliver-stone-tributes-parry/
It is the same type of juvenile cretinism you get from the slime at Bellingcat if you engage them on twitter. They shout insults for a few minutes then block you. It is not surprising that the two organisations are linked.
The extent of the circular incest among ProPornOT, Crowdstrike, Bellingcrap, The Atlantic Council and various others is staggering.